new final mailing address

on the side bar, but here it is:

Stephen Ahn

Apartado Postal 1800

Santa Rosa De Copan

Honduras, America Central

Volunteer at last!!

I haven’t been able to update in a while because my site has no internet! I live in a small town of about 2,000 people. The roads are all made of dirt, there are pigs and chicken running around, and there is no market to buy food (closest things are pulperias). The closest big city is a two hour bus ride away in Santa Rosa where they have more stuff. But the only bus leaves my site at 7am and leaves Santa Rosa at 3pm, so not too flexible. I will be working with the town government as well as the school. The school is tiny – 1st to 9th grade, and each grade is only one classroom. I definitely find the benefit of replacing a volunteer – the people here accept me more readily so integration should not be too hard. They go out of their way to make me comfortable and are more trusting of me. My host family was recommended by the outgoing volunteer and they are nice – the dad is only 3 years older than me and they have two kids – one 9 and one 3 ½. The mom is a teacher and the dad owns a coffee farm. This whole town exists because of coffee – about 20% of the families here own coffee farms and the rest work as manual laborers. I need to figure out how I can improve what goes on here – the owners of the coffee farms work from October to May, which is coffee season, and then they just chill until it starts again. It may sound nice but it creates a mentality of doing nothing for about four months. The manual laborers as well – they prefer to work three days a week and then they don’t do anything for the other four days. I think one of the first things I need to do is to help change the mentality. I see what makes Americans different; perhaps what makes them so successful - it’s the mentality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and that you can be whatever you want to be. For me it seems that here people are kind of resigned to their fate. I think that trying to change that mentality is going to be my first step. Also, for a small town, there isn’t a sense of community. I feel that everyone kind of does their own thing, which is a real shame. Another project I’m thinking of are events to bring everyone together on a semi-regular basis; for example, bingo night or movie night, or even a party or dance. Since my town is a dry town (no alcohol sold – sad, yes), they shouldn’t get too rowdy. Plus, everyone has a gun.
My second group to work with is the school. Interesting thing about school here – it starts at 8am and ends at 1pm. I don’t recall school being so short for me, but I could be wrong. I really hope to improve the educational system here – not for all of Honduras, but for my town at least. They have a computer center but no one knows how to really use computers. When I met with the teachers, I asked what they hoped I would help with – they said English, computers, physical education, health, and sports. I said that I didn’t have a problem with this, but that I would need the teachers to commit to spend extra hours to learn and to teach the students as well. When I said this and asked who would be willing to spend time, no one raised their hands. The director then suggested I start with physical education first. This kind of raised the issue of the sustainability of our work. If I do all the work now, who would continue when I leave? That is another issue I have to tackle – doing the work for them for two years and then leaving will not solve any of their issues. But I’m glad I’m thinking about this now instead of a year and a half from now.
In other news, I’ve been to Santa Rosa (the big city) 3 times in two weeks. I was kind of tired of it for a while. Fun story – the second time I went to Santa Rosa with the people at my municipality, we were driving back around 7pm. The road to our town is up a long windy dirt road. It was dark and about 20 minutes outside of town we saw a car blocking the road, and people with flashlights in the hill above and below. We were told before of stories how bandits would block the road to stop cars and would rob them at gunpoint. The municipal worker waited for 5 minutes to see what was happening and then started to drive in reverse at high speed. He said it was not worth the risk – we had ladies in the car, and they tried to call the one policeman in the town. It turned out that he had left that afternoon which didn’t help with the mood. We did a J turn and then hightailed it back to Santa Rosa to sleep in a hotel. I called the Peace Corps to tell them of the situation as well (policy). I was told we made the right decision – better safe than sorry.
The next morning we drove back up to our town once again, and who do we see? The same car from the previous night. It turns out that they were deer hunters, and we traded a few laughs. They said they were signaling with the light to drive past them, but who in their right mind would take that gamble? Good times all in all.
Today (6/4) I went with the kids from the school to a field, where they ran around playing games and soccer. One person actually had a football (American), so I taught them to play football. Needless to say it was really fun, but I forgot to take sunblock. My face hurts.
I posted picture from the last week at Peace Corps training along with our swearing in (now we are formal
Peace Corps volunteers, not peace corps trainees). I’ll post pictures of my new site next time.

Copan

Last week we found out our final site placements… the location we would be spending the next two years of our lives. I’m going to Copan! Peace Corps doesn’t recommend we share with the whole world exactly where we are going, but I’ll be in a small city in Copan. Copan is in the west of Honduras, on the boarder with Guatemala. The Copan ruins are there as well. I’ll be going to Copan with one other business volunteer (she will be south of where I am), along with a Water & Sanitation volunteer in another site north west of me and a Health volunteer about south west of me. Those are only the volunteers from this group; there are other volunteers from previous groups there already. What is also nice is that I’m a bus ride away from San Pedro Sula, the major transportation center of the north. There are lots of factories there owned by Koreans, so I should have no problem finding Korean food as well as Korean groceries. When we go to our sites, we will have to live with our new host family for at least 2 months. Also, we will not be able to leave our site for those 2 months. We aren’t allowed to take vacation days until 3 months in; until then we are allowed “walk abouts” which means we are allowed to travel somewhere overnight in case we want to visit other volunteers, need to run errands at other locations, etc. I am definitely looking forward to my new site even though I am told that I have big shoes to fill. I am replacing another volunteer, what everyone calls a ‘super volunteer’ because he did so much for his community. Lots of the other volunteers specifically said that they didn’t want to go to replace him because of the expectations to live up to. Somehow I ended up with this site, but I’m ok with it. I plan on going in with no expectations of what I want to do; I’ll just go in and see what there is that I can do to improve and help my community.
Other big news – I passed the language proficiency exam! We had to get at least a level of intermediate medium to swear in as volunteers. I started out as a novice, but today I had my interview and I was cleared as an INT-M. That also means that I’m eligible to receive a tutor for the next three months – something that is only available to those at the INT-M level. So it turned out great. If I had not been able to pass I would have been required to stay at the training site for another week to study and then take another exam. If that wasn’t enough I would have had another week again. But I’m glad to start my life in my new site, where the real world is waiting for me.
Our last week in Ojojona we held a business simulation at a high school in a nearby community. We each had a classroom of students and we taught them basic marketing, production and accounting. The students then had to form their own businesses, create a product and then sell – all in four days. My group made bracelets to sell. I definitely felt more comfortable speaking Spanish in front of a crowd after the HIV/AIDS charla and I feel I did a lot better this time. Also during this week was when we found out about our site announcements – they drew a map of Honduras on the ground, explained where the sites were and then told us who was going to which site. That was followed by pizza and cake – good times!
Also, I went on an excursion to see some caves near Ojojona, which was fun. We managed to get a jalon (hitchhike) to the location of the caves and back. Nothing like sitting on the back of a pickup truck… I also went on a grueling hike to La Tigre National Park. We couldn’t get to the waterfalls because we had to get back early to catch a bus, but we had some nice views when we went.
In other news, I am back at the first training site with my first host family. We are here for this last week of training; on Thursday we meet our counterparts, and on Friday we have our swearing in ceremony as volunteers. We will meet the ambassador and all the other good stuff – it should be fun. We then leave for our sites early Saturday morning, so this is the last time a lot of us will see each other until 3 months. That is when we will all get back together to learn about grant writing and all that other good stuff. I left my family in Ojojona last Saturday, which is why I wasn’t able to post anything. I’ll be leaving this coming Saturday so I don’t know when the next time will be to update everything – I was told that there isn’t good wireless internet access where I am going. I may have to look into getting a landline when I move out on my own, or may have to use the local internet café if there is one. Lastly, I adjusted the blog so that anyone can post comments without having to sign up, so please let me know if you have any questions or what not. Until next time… new pics posted as well....

Tourism week / HIV

Last week we went to the southern coast of Honduras for classes on tourism. We divided into three groups to work with three different businesses and develop business plans for them. My group was a restaurant that also doubled as a private zoo. Apparently there is only one public zoo in Honduras, with a lot more private collections. The restaurant we went to exhibits the animals for free – but he only has about 17 different species. Eventually he hopes to charge, but in doing so, he will really need to spruce the place up. After touring the restaurant, we went to the beach and camped out there one night. We had hot dogs and tuna fish sandwiches – glorious American food!! – played volleyball, and in general just relaxed (with the exception of the one group that interviewed the owner of the campgrounds). The next day we went to another beach for a group building activity and played an improvised version of waterpolo/ultimate Frisbee with a half full Coke bottle. We then went to another restaurant for seafood and the third group interviewed the restaurant owner. After that we went home and had to work on a business plan (in Spanish this time!) to present to the group by the end of the week. Work hard, play hard – it was real fun. On Saturday we played soccer against a group called Christos Jovenes (Christ’s Kids) and we got smashed 7-3. 1 was a self goal, and we missed 2 penalty kicks, so it could have been 6-5, but it was 7-3. Most importantly we had fun, so good times.
This past week we went over micro finances and we had guest speakers (volunteers from previous groups) to give lectures on HIV/AIDS (in Spanish). We were then split up into groups to give the same presentation to a local high school – in Spanish. The work was intense, but I think we did a good job. The volunteers told us that giving a VIH/SIDA charla (that’s how they say it in Spanish) is a good way to integrate into your site when you first get there as lots of Hondurans are interested in these lectures. One of the volunteers was Korean, and he told me that there are Korean super markets in Honduras, especially in San Pedro Sula (the municipal with the highest homicide rates) as lots of machillas are owned by Koreans. Machillas are factories that receive half way processed goods from over seas, are worked on (value is added) the shipped back out again. But the danger in San Pedro Sula is primarily between gang members as lots of them are there. The only danger for tourists and other non-drug dealers is to be mugged, but as long as you split up your cash you should be fine. I definitely think the risk is worth it – I miss me some Korean food…

Next week we find out about where we will be placed. Should make for an exciting day Wednsday.... new pictures are up as well.

Cheque

The title of this blog is “Total Cheque.” In case some of you were wondering, Cheque is slang in Honduras (not sure if other Latin American countries use it or not) and it is used as ‘cool’ or ‘chill’ would be used in America. For example, if someone asked how you are doing, you’d reply ‘Cheque’ if you were doing well. Or you might ask ‘Todo Cheque?’ if you wanted to ask ‘Everything OK/ Cool?’ It is pronounced Cheh-kay. So that was a little Honduran slang for you.
Additionally I’ll go over what I’ve been doing so far in the Peace Corps. Essentially, every day is divided into two parts – Spanish language classes and technical classes. Language classes are normally in the morning, followed by technical classes after lunch. Technical classes is where we learn business procedures in Honduras. Some of it is going over different business structures in Honduras as well as bringing everyone up to speed in business skills. Basic finance, accounting, marketing, information technology etc. is taught since everyone is at a different level here. We also learn about business specific to Honduras such as tourism and artisan craft. Other important subjects are how adults learn, how to affect behavior change, and most importantly for business volunteers, how to write a business plan. The latter is especially important as it is the bread and butter of what the business volunteers do here.
My group is HN-16. I’m sure we’re not the 16th class here as Honduras has one of the oldest programs in the Peace Corps, but our group comprises of Health, Water and Sanitation, and Business. The Peace Corps has two cycles annually in Honduras – the first cycle which is us, and the second cycle with PAM (Protected Areas Management), Municipal Development, and Youth Development. Right now the three groups in my cycle are all divided up by projects – Business in Ojojona, Health in La Paz, and Water and Sanitation in El Paraisio (the cities might be the other way around for Health and Wat/San) for field base training (FBT). This is where each project trains more in depth for their respective projects for 7 weeks. After this we will go back to Zarabanda (where we were for the first 3 weeks) for one more week all together and then we will be placed all over the country. Generally, I’m told that the last few weeks are really stressful because everyone is anxious about where they will be placed. This is important as it is where you will be for the next two years and can determine if your service will be enjoyable or not. Generally, PAM is placed in the rural areas without much development and Business is placed in areas with more infrastructures. I hope that I don’t get placed in a big city because generally there are more people that speak English there and it is easy to fall into a trap of not speaking Spanish. At the same time I don’t want to be placed in an area so small that I’ll be bored out of my mind and has no internet connection. We’ll see how it goes – one of the things I need to finish for next week is a questionnaire about placement.
Other than that, special thanks to Roger and Charlene for sending the first letter I received here (took almost 3 weeks!) and my sister for sending my first package (2 weeks! With candy!). I’m not sure why it takes packages shorter time to get here, but then again it is random. I’ve heard that sometimes packages g o all the way to Australia before they get here to Honduras, so who knows what goes on…This past week we went on a tourism trip and camped out at a beach. I’ll upload pictures and more information next time – don’t want to run out of things to write about…and if anyone has questions they would like to ask, feel free to ask in the comments section and I’ll either answer them there, or if it requires more detail I’ll perhaps blog about it…

Interesting Stories

So we had 2 Peace Corp trainees that were sexually assaulted so far. Fortunately they were males, and they were accosted by their host sisters after a few drinks. Everyone just laughs it off, but I find it interesting nonetheless. Again, it is only funny because the trainees were males. It really is tougher to be a female Peace Corp trainee/volunteer than it is a male. During one training session, we were told of several different instances when females were assaulted. One female was out having a drink, then next thing she remembers is waking up in bed with a Honduran man. Most likely she was drugged. Another time a female volunteer was out for a run when someone intercepted her with a gun. He was trying to get her to the bushes to rape her but she was quick thinking enough to stall for time until they heard someone else approaching. That scared off her assailant and she was fortunately safe. Since it was almost the end of her service, she just went straight home to the U.S. So it is definitely important to keep safe, to stay aware, and not carry a lot of stuff with you. Being a foreigner definitely makes you stick out a lot more here.

Ojojona

So I have been with my new host family for about 2 weeks now. I am in Ojojona, about 40 minutes south of the capital Tegucigalpa. That is if you have a car – it is a two hour bus ride for everyone else. I love this town because it is quaint; there are eight thousand people living here. My new host family is totally awesome. No young kids, their son and daughter are in college, and we play soccer often. We play with the neighborhood kids and we play with a small plastic ball since no one has a soccer ball. I plan on buying one and eventually leaving it here for the kids to play with.

What sucks for my host brother and sister is that the teachers here in Honduras are constantly on strike. The government doesn’t have money to pay them (they are federal employees) so the teachers frequently strike. What this means for the students is that they do not get to learn. Some people are angry at the teachers, but then again, if the teachers didn’t go on strike, the government would not worry about paying them. It is a cycle here, and it is considered to be the norm. There is a one term limit for the presidency and when a new president from a different party comes in, they fire everyone from the previous administration and place their friends and followers into position. Obviously this sucks because any work that was in progress from the previous administration would stop. Also, this doesn’t stop the government from making long term promises it does not intend to keep. One of these was teacher salaries. They kept saying they would give the teachers a raise in lieu of cash now – this kept going on until the next president came in and was left holding the bag. Obviously the new administration has no intentions of honoring the word of the previous admin, so lots of teachers are left out of luck. One of the reasons why the government is so much fiscal problems is also because Hondurans for the most part do not pay taxes. The equivalent of the IRS here is almost powerless and lots of Hondurans are unemployed – on paper at least. There are lots of random businesses here, such as selling good on the streets or out of your house, and it is not reported as a business so they don’t pay taxes. And the government doesn’t have the revenue/resources to chase after those that don’t pay taxes, so nothing really gets done.

Other than the big picture issues that plague Honduras, I am adjusting to life here. I just want to say that you don’t really get to appreciate a washing machine until you start washing your own laundry with your hands. On a weekly basis. But I am getting used to it, and I find that I wear shirts at least twice a week before I wash it.

Another frequency here is blackouts. Sometimes it is for several hours, but last night it was from 8pm until 1pm today. I taught my host brother, sister, and visiting cousins how to play pendejo (Guatemalan asshole) and we played that for a while. You find ways to keep yourself entertained here.

In terms of language, when I got here I tested at novice low (pretty much all I was able to say was “that cat is black. I like cat.” We just had our 2^nd interview test, and I tested at intermediate low! We have to speak at an intermediate mid level by the end of training, so I am definitely encouraged by the progress I have made.